


The Cruelty or the Grace

by Caladenia



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Grace - Freeform, Lots of undertones, Penance - Freeform, Reference to Episode: s02e21 Deadlock, Reference to Episode: s03e26 Scorpion, Religious Undertones, Self-Harm, Sexual Undertones, Whipping, angst with salvation, self-punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23941576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladenia/pseuds/Caladenia
Summary: DuringVoyager’s journey, Janeway descends into her own private hell as she seeks to atone for the consequences of her decisions and what she sees as her transgressions of Starfleet principles. Is she deserving of salvation? AU
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 65
Kudos: 64
Collections: Caught The Darkness (Star Trek Fandom Event - May 2020)





	1. Penitence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/gifts).



> My most sincere thanks to [ BlackVelvet42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackVelvet42/pseuds/BlackVelvet42) for keeping me on the right track since I told her I was writing a Whip WIP, and [CoffeeBlack75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeblack75/pseuds/coffeeblack75) (what’s with all those numbers??) for correcting, among other things, a (very) few grammar/word choices here and there. Who would have known that a ‘hair breath’ is in fact a ‘hair’s breadth’?  
> [ _insert gallic shrug here_ ]
> 
> This story would have never seen the light if not for Devovere's [Vendetta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554191) which showed me why I had to dwell much deeper into the very dark recesses of my favourite character's mind.

* * *

  
_Behold the gates of mercy_  
_In arbitrary space_  
_And none of us deserving_  
_The cruelty or the grace_

Leonard Cohen - ‘Come Healing’

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Penitence**

> _Vilified, crucified in the human frame_  
>  _A million candles burning for the help that never came_  
>  _You want it darker_  
>  _We kill the flame_  
>  Leonard Cohen - ‘You Want It Darker’

**⁂**

Florence, Italy, Medieval period. The place and time were only a subterfuge, in case somebody was looking into her holodeck programs. She needed a way to hide what she came here for, and everybody by now knew of her predilection for historical recreational programs. The deception was just another wrong to add to an ever-growing list.

A room on the third floor of a non-existent building. Walls with age-old tapestries hanging from ceiling to marbled floor, depictions of biblical battles and trials blurring into the candlelight. Heavy brocade curtains framed a large window which only showed a night sky with brooding clouds and no stars. She wasn’t there to marvel at the view over the old city.

Bisecting the otherwise nearly empty room stood a large and ugly square wooden frame, a doorway into a world she had sampled on very few occasions over the years. Near it, a tall figure loomed, broad of shoulder. Short-cropped dark hair, a black leather tunic and an overall air of self-assurance completed the look of a man used to taking orders and not flinching at what was asked of him. His brown eyes shone behind the Venetian mask she had made him wear at the last minute. It did nothing to hide his full mouth set in a rigid line as if in grim appreciation of what he’d been programmed to do. A smirk would have been more appropriate, but she was not after public humiliation. She was judging herself, and the holographic man was merely the instrument of her will. Nothing more.

Janeway kicked her boots off and discarded her uniform jacket over the back of an antique chair, before standing spreadeagle under the frame, as if posing for a Vitruvian study. The man tied her wrists and ankles to the corners, the soles of his boots scraping the hard floor as he circled her. Apparently satisfied the knots would not slip, he took his position behind her, his breathing low and steady.

She closed her eyes and smiled.

A swish in the air.

Kathryn howled as the whip ripped through her.

**⁂**

The afterglow lasted many days following that first ‘session’, as she came to call them. Energised, she was ready once more to shoulder the choices she had made on behalf of a hundred and forty people lost decades away from the Alpha Quadrant.

She had too much to lose to go back on her decision to bring the two crews together and make a first officer out of the very same Maquis leader she had been ordered to pursue and bring to justice. There were no other ways to get home but together as one crew, one ship, and she put her heart and soul into projecting herself as a figure of competence and determination, walking with her back straight and her chin high.

They would find a way back. They would make it home.

And yet, it was that very same resolve that undermined her, and her back once more bent under the doubts.

With every new obstacle and enemy, the feeling grew that a more seasoned Starfleet captain might have done things completely differently. That they wouldn’t have blown up the Caretaker’s array in the first place and stranded their ship seventy-five years from safety. That they would have cut their losses and stayed well clear of the Ocampan world in full obedience to the Prime Directive. That they would have upheld their orders and dealt with the Maquis according to the mission’s original objectives.

Over the next few months she came back to that dim room with its masked man and his whip, shedding her guilt at the same time as the skin of her back. Caught between a desire to atone for her defiance of rules and protocols she'd been sworn to uphold and the harsh realities of the Delta Quadrant, she chose instead to quieten her mind through ritual and pain.

Too soon, too often, she was back for another session, and another, until her back couldn’t take it anymore, and she stretched out the times between sessions until she choked under the weight of her dark thoughts. She had to think of another form of penance, but there were no other methods of punishment which were as discrete yet effective. Either the pain was too harsh and left her raw and in shock, or it didn’t linger even when she limited her use of a dermal regenerator once she was back in her quarters. So, she resumed her proven ways and returned to writhe and cry and bend as the lashes rained on her.

**⁂**

The Sikaris disaster blindsided her. Had she unconsciously led her officers astray in her never-ending quest for a faster way home? Even Tuvok, the man she held in such high regard for his counsel, had stumbled in his eagerness to help her, and she felt adrift in a moral morass forever shifting under her feet.

Seeking expiation from circumstances she should have anticipated, she went back to the whip and the physical penance. Her head bowed, arms high in the air as if in prayer, and long hair cascading over her bent shoulders, her mind wept.

In the throes of the gruelling punishment, she wished a knight would burst into the room and whisk her away from the torment. She conjured up a vision of her first officer entering the holodeck and telling her that her cries had been heard. Carried over the threshold by his momentum, his apparition came to a halt a couple of metres from her.

“Captain?”

Her head snapped up at his voice and her eyes flew open. She hoped, against all odds, that a saviour had appeared and that she no longer had to suffer the agony of the whip after months of self-imposed punishment. That her transgressions were finally pardoned and her doubts cast away. She fought against her ties to reach him, while the hologram lifted the whip.

Her back exploded.

Chakotay vanished.

There would be no knight, because nobody could know what she was doing, and nobody could forgive her, and she asked for ten more lashes to make amends for her weakness. Only the bodily and unavoidable penance she squarely inflicted on herself could help her retain her sanity and help her face another day.

Not an appeal to a gallant champion.

**⁂**

As she increased the intensity of the sessions and still found no lasting absolution, she wondered how she would survive the next seventy-five years. She needed more than the sheer physicality of the pain. She needed a mind behind the hand that held the whip.

A few weeks later, she modified the holodeck program as an experiment, adding a pared-down holographic version of her first officer walking into the room just as the session ended. The discipline contraption and the man who looked so much like him disappeared, leaving the Chakotay hologram and her standing in the middle of the dim space.

He didn’t move as she carefully made her way to the table. “You need to see the EMH,” he simply said.

She wanted to see disgust in his eyes, but glimpsed only indifference. “Do not dare tell me what I need, Commander. What were you doing, barging in without authorisation?” Gritting her teeth, she grasped the edge of the table with white knuckles.

He straightened his spine like a good officer, and answered without hesitation, as if he had no problem with watching his captain being flogged. “The energy surge we experienced this morning caused damaging power transfers across most ship systems. Engineering has been flat out most of the day, so B’Elanna asked me to check the holodecks. I tried to contact you when I realised you were here, but you didn’t answer.”

She almost rolled her eyes at the lame explanation. Her holodeck programming skills had slipped.

“Do you need help to clean yourself up?” he asked, his impersonal tone of voice becoming grating.

“I’m fine.”

He picked up the towel, waiting. “You won’t be able to reach.”

She didn’t feel like arguing, and shrugging would only hurt. Letting go of the table, she gingerly lifted the shirt off her back, the fabric already sticking to the abused skin underneath.

Chakotay dipped the towel into the cool water from the bowl and began wiping her back. He was rough and uncaring, leaving her confused as to what she’d expected. He wasn't her first officer. He wasn't the real Chakotay who would be rightly appalled at what she was doing.

The water turned a light pink. The tip of the whip had broken the skin in a few places, but most of the grazes were shallow. After a few minutes, the hologram put the towel down.

“Thank you, Commander, I’ll take it from here.” She turned to face him, compensating for her lack of stature with a look of pure ice. “As my first officer, you are bound not to disclose what you saw here to anybody on this ship.”

“Aye, Captain.” His eyes were empty, his face blank.

“Computer, end program.”

The Florentine room and Chakotay faded around her. She finished getting dressed and left the holodeck for her quarters without a glance back.

What had she been thinking? This wasn’t going to work.


	2. Penance

**Chapter 2 - Penance**

> _I thought the past would last me_   
>  _But the darkness got that too_
> 
> Leonard Cohen - 'Darkness'

**⁂**

Without asking, the psychologist added a dash of pale yellow cream to her cup. The silky taste mellowed the bitterness of the handmade brew to a perfect balance. It had been a long time since she’d tasted such good coffee. Her mother was always trying to curb her consumption, and the replicators on the couple of ships she’d been assigned to so far in her short career never managed more than a mere simulation of the real thing.

“It’s a matter of grace,” the man said, his hands fluttering as if she was supposed to agree with the point he’d been making for the past ten minutes.

“Grace?” Kathryn almost spat out her drink. “You must be kidding.”

He didn’t seem overtly resentful of her scorn and said nothing for a while. A high-ranking psychologist, Dr Coirib had sat on her last counselling session with the therapist who had been assigned to her case, pondering her answers in silence before asking a few questions himself. He usually catered for captains and admirals rather than lowly ensigns, but her circumstances might have tickled his fancy.

Feeling embarrassed for him, she took another sip of her coffee while looking around his private office. The counselling sessions were usually organised on Starfleet grounds, in grey cubicles devoid of anything which would allow the wounded minds to stray. On this occasion though, she’d been asked to come to an old Mission-style house lost among the leafy suburb surrounding the Academy. The sun shone in dazzling waves through large windows overlooking a row of young trees. Inside the bright and airy room, bookshelves climbed up the walls, so tall they seemed to be holding the ceiling. A small and unadorned cross hung on the bare wall behind the desk. 

“You’re a chaplain,” she said in an accusatory tone, her china cup giving a small tinkle as she put it down. “You never told me.”

He lifted an eyebrow, mocking her. “You aren’t very observant.”

“I hardly need a priest, Doctor Coirib.” No way she was going to use the word ‘Father’.

He put his hand up. “Counsellor, psychologist, priest. Helping wounded souls takes many paths, young lady.”

How she hated being called that. Then she realised he was needling her on purpose. From his point of view, he probably preferred her angry than still frozen in grief.

“Grace is an archaic idea,” she said with finality in her voice.

“The concept embarrasses the scientist in you? It’s not because Starfleet didn’t invent the term that it has no merits, young—”

She gave him a dark glare and he caught himself, a half smile on his lips.

“My apologies. Grace is usually not something I mention to many people until much later in their careers, when events and decisions weigh heavily on their shoulders.” He stood and rummaged through a shelf bowing under thick hardcovers propping each other at odd angles, his fingers flitting along the well-worn spines.

Even her parents, as traditional as they were, had never kept this number of books. She suspected the house of this mysterious, yet compelling man held many more, and a glimmer of esteem for him insinuated itself in her mind. Books meant knowledge, and she did respect knowledge. It was something she’d always striven to attain, the guiding light of her life. But knowledge had not helped her make sense of what she had let happen to her father and Justin. That act remained nameless, inexplicable, and for three long months she’d wished she’d remained too under the leaden ice which had engulfed them both.

“There. You might find this story a timely read one day.” He placed a slim volume in front of her before returning to his seat behind the large desk. “And with that, your counselling sessions are at an end. I have sent my approval for your reinstatement, effective immediately.”

“You did?” She half rose from her chair.

“This morning.”

“Then I am healed,” she said, unsure of the consequences of what had eluded her for so long. It was hard to envisage a future when the recent past had just about consumed her.

“Do you feel healed?”

She thought about it. “No, not really. I feel changed. Different.” The darkness still stood close, but a little to the side now, no longer baying. “Leaner,” she added with some surprise.

The woman who’d faced her in the mirror that morning had shed the puppy fat of her previous self along with the last remnants of innocence. Her grey eyes had looked back without flinching, as if a new person had emerged from the months of senselessness she’d gone through. A woman she didn't know yet, but one she would live with from now on. One, she hoped, who would be strong enough to accompany her for the rest of her life.

“Good. Anybody who tells me they are healed is either lying or deluding themselves. You cannot return to who you were after such experiences.”

The old man steepled his fingers. “Young lady,” he started and because he had found her fit to return to active duty, she didn’t interject this time. “You've gone through two very arduous trials. Your capture by the Cardassians, and yes, I know about that,” he said when she looked at him with wide eyes, “and the accidental deaths of two men you held close to your heart. You will go through many more such ordeals unless you take a desk job at the Academy, or leave Starfleet altogether. I understand you are a promising scientist. There are many career paths opened to you which would be less traumatic.”

It was an illusion to think the world would be a safer place if she were to hide and give up on Starfleet. She lifted her chin. “Last year, Admiral Paris suggested I should consider changing career track. I’ll take his advice and switch to command.”

She could not read the look that appeared on the old man’s face at her words. He watched the dappled light falling through the trees, before turning his attention back to her.

“Space is indifferent to the fate of puny sentient beings like us. You’ve suffered the consequences of that total lack of empathy earlier in your career than most, and you will be tested again and again when you embark on your new vocation. But you are made of hardened steel, sharp and well-honed, and you have survived what might have bent a lesser blade.”

He rose from his seat, an affectionate grin on his lips. “And as much as I would like to continue our fascinating conversation, you are ready to face the world once more.”

For the first time in months, she was smiling as the front door opened into sunshine. The man put his hand on the small book he'd given her. “You will find there are many ways to deal with the darkness that will forever follow you, Ensign Janeway. Some of those will lead you a hair’s breadth away from being swallowed up whole again. This book doesn’t provide an answer, far from it, but it will show you that the things that torment you most are the very same that connect you with all the people who are closest to you.”

Sixteen years later, she sent a silent apology to the old man who had seemed to know her better than most. The blade was now well and truly dulled and chipped. The small book she'd received, Dante’s musings on love and passion, was now half a galaxy away and far from what she sought. In its place, she’d found another of the Florentine’s books, a much larger volume on just punishment and perennial anguish.

**⁂**

“Are you asking me because I’m a renegade? Because you think an outlaw can set aside any sense of morality that easily?”

His legs were crossed at the ankles, an arm resting on the couch back, a discarded padd in hand. His relaxed stance didn’t diminish the fact that she was the one who had come and asked his hologram to inflict something on his captain that no first officer should agree to.

Who else was there though? Who else could she trust to take control over the train wreck she had set in motion? She couldn’t do it all alone anymore.

“It’s the holodeck safety protocols. They are too efficient.” She felt her cheeks warm. It was pathetic, being ashamed in front of a hologram.

“I assume you’ve tried without them.”

This time, she thought she saw a faint look of disgust cross his face.

“Yes.” That had been three weeks before. She’d bowed to her senior officers’ advice to make a deal with the Kazon for an easy way out, in full violation of basic Starfleet principles. Then hurtled into a trap which could have quickly turned into a complete disaster. Her instinctive dislike of the Kazon had made her blind to the covert antagonism of the Trabe. Her pride in her diplomatic skills to end a generational war had been naïve at best. Meanwhile, she had used grand words to belittle her own battered crew after Bendera's death.

Culluh had been right. She was a holier-than-thou hypocrite clinging to high principles while crew members died around her, and that was what she’d carried to the holodeck on that fateful evening. Her arrogance, her failures, her hesitations and pride. There’d been no first officer, no safety protocols, no Florence. Just the square frame and the vacant-looking hologram in the centre of the room.

The session had been so brutal she had ended the program before her holodeck time was due to finish. She didn’t remember the agonising walk back to her quarters, only that the corridors had been mercifully empty at that late hour, so nobody had seen her clutching at the bulkheads the whole way to her quarters just to stay upright.

Once in her bedroom, she had taken care of her wrists and ankles first, awkwardly holding the dermal regenerator she’d requisitioned months before from sickbay with stiffened fingers. The damage to her back was too severe to heal in one go. She’d spent the rest of the night repairing the injuries inch by inch, dizzy with pain and close to collapsing with each pass of the medical device.

The day after that appalling session had been pure torture while she pretended nothing was wrong with her. Shaken to the core, she had avoided her first officer's looks of concern by taking refuge in her ready room, sitting well away from the back of the chair. It had been a nightmare she wasn’t ready to repeat. A glimpse into what she was doing to herself could too easily bring about if she couldn’t control the intensity of the punishment.

She sought atonement, not mindless violence.

What she needed was neither an automaton nor a torturer, but she couldn’t tweak its holomatrix at every strike. The bare-bones data she’d used in her first experiment with Chakotay had missed too much of his character, leaving his hologram a mere contrivance. So, this time, she’d entered the Starfleet records of his Maquis file in the program, those on the leather-clad fighter who had arrived on her bridge, menacing and dangerous, a phaser in his hand. She had carefully omitted to include who he had become since, the man the captain needed to stand by her side every day of their journey. It would not do for her to confound the two, and she could hardly ask the real version, could she?

And here he was, his new holographic version sprawled on the couch in his holographic quarters, waiting for her to elaborate on her answer.

“Without the safety protocols, it went too far the other way,” she threw at him.

To his credit, he didn’t flinch, nor did he sneer, but she’d known that if there was one man who wouldn’t cringe at punishment and pain, it would be the Maquis leader.

He leaned over, his elbows on his knees as if they were discussing the bridge roster for the next week. “So, you are asking me instead. Why?” There was no care apparent in his voice.

She was a bit lost at the question she thought she’d already answered. “Why am I asking you?” she repeated.

“No. Why are you doing this?”

Wanting to listen to her motives was typical of her first officer. She wasn’t sure if it was his Starfleet training or something deeper in his psyche, but Chakotay had a keen inquiring mind she’d quickly related to. Although, in this instance, she was hardly after his intellect. He was only a hologram, for god’s sake.

“That’s none of your business, Commander. I’m not asking for a counsellor or a confessor.”

_Just say yes or no. It’s not that difficult._

His eyebrow shot up, and maybe there was a smirk too. It didn’t really matter. She’d only come here with one question and she was still waiting for his answer. “Do you accept?”

“Yes,” he said. “On one condition.”

“No, that's not how—”

“I'll help you with proper aftercare.”

She let out a small breath, masking her surprise. She’d expected a callous man—hoped for was closer to the truth—and now he was offering to help in a way she hadn’t anticipated. It might be the job of her first officer to look after the physical well-being of his captain, but she could hardly ask him to—

He was a hologram. Nothing more. Holding that thought in her mind, she focused on his offer. The physical aftermath of each session was as important as the punishment itself, the protracted aches a reminder of the penance she sought so badly. It also helped her space the sessions and drew her away from the addictive power which rippled underneath the pain. She now knew enough of her solution to realise she was walking a fine line between reasoned need for chastisement and uncontrolled descent into hell.

The Maquis hologram had a point, though. She couldn’t afford to remain incapacitated for longer than strictly necessary. One never knew what the Delta Quadrant would throw at the ship without warning. It wasn’t like the enemy waited politely until the start of alpha shift to take umbrage at a small Starfleet ship crossing their borders.

She nodded her agreement. “Thank you.” Floundering for what more to say, she simply turned on her heel and made to leave the holodeck.

Before she reached the door, he called, his voice even. “When?”

When she was lost. When she was down to her last self-serving thought. When she couldn’t go on because she was drowning, suffocating—

“I’ll let you know,” she said without breaking her stride.

Once outside, she ended the program, dizzy with relief.


	3. Surrender

**Chapter 3 - Surrender**

> _Body framed with arms outstretched,_   
>  _Wrists roped,_   
>  _and roughly bound_
> 
> Michael Faudet - ‘The Muse’

**⁂**

Now that she could access her perfected program at any time, she felt less pressed to use it straightaway. Delaying her sessions proved gratifying too, an effect she had not expected. It was easier to not castigate herself for taking the hard decisions she had to make, to not crave atonement for her many transgressions and compromises. As days became weeks, and weeks stretched into a couple of months without the need for another session, she lulled herself into thinking that she might not need one at all.

How easy it is to deceive oneself, she reflected, her fingers hovering near the access pad of the holodeck door. However, none of her self-loathing made it easier to call up her first officer’s holomatrix. What she feared most was coming face to face with the man she’d grown to appreciate and depend on over the past fifteen months spent together on away missions or on the bridge battling the Delta Quadrant foes at too frequent an interval. His strength, compassion and humanity. His obvious—

The man she’d re-programmed weeks before wasn’t the man who sat at her side every day, she reminded herself. It was only a collection of photons bound to her will, and she punched her authorisation code into the holodeck wall computer.

A look was all he needed when she let him into her holodeck quarters. He knew why he’d been summoned.

She almost terminated the program right then.

Almost.

**⁂**

He proved as efficient as the anonymous hologram he’d replaced. His program made him deaf when she begged him to stop. Begging was part of her penance, she’d explained, laying the rules at his feet. Begging, crying, shamefully letting herself break, one lash at a time. It was a cycle she knew too well. Only when she plunged into those depths could she rise again, a lesson learnt a long time ago in the aftermath of a devastating crash on an icy planet.

Not all sessions would be like that, she’d added. Sometimes, she would be too strong to bow; she’d take the punishment without a cry. Stand tall and silent while he flogged her, she’d said. But that was pride keeping her aloft. And pride was one of the many things she sought to let go under the whip. Pride in her four pips. Pride in her judgement. Because it was her pride, among other things, which had let the ship down and stranded its crew.

She didn’t really know. Self-analysis only got her so far when _Voyager_ ’s requisition forms and status reports swamped her desk every day, in between battling another over-aggressive, over-confident alien, and keeping the ship on its seventy-five-year-long course. There were no therapy sessions to buttress her this time, no professional counsel, no mentor to guide and bolster her. No one to help untangle the web of contradictory thoughts that strangled her mind until she could no longer function.

She’d been warned of this issue in command school. Many people, she’d been told, took the command role in their stride. From the short-sighted rule-sticklers to those who held Starfleet principles as a matter of absolute law, the captaincy was only one more pip to wear—as easily borne as it was displayed. But rarely did that attitude lead to determination under duress. For those who preferred to seek rather than sit back, to question rather than provide the answers, the captaincy was not that straightforward a leap from obeying orders to dispensing them. That was why others were there to talk to if needed, men and women who had walked the same path and could help make sense of the confusion, the self-doubts, the weight of decisions haunting their nights.

Here, in the Delta Quadrant, her burden was nobody else’s to bear, let alone anyone of a lower rank. Not even Tuvok, for all his wisdom, experience and deep friendship. Not even Chakotay.

Especially not Chakotay.

It wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t his responsibility. And beyond that, she feared his pity, and even more the kindness she sensed in him.

That first time though, she did cry and break in the hands of his unmoved holodeck clone. She’d lost a ship. An entire ship and crew minus two people who had died, and yet survived.

It was not her ship truly, but she was the same person as that hard-headed captain who had destroyed her own _Voyager_. If the roles had been reversed, if she had thought her ship condemned, the Viidians boarding it to slaughter her crew and plunder their organs, she would have done the same as her counterpart.

As it was, she’d been the one to lose the remedy of death to save her soul. Her alter ego was the hero of the story, going down with her ship. And because of the decision her other self had taken, she sought the now-familiar punishment for the two of them. Her for staying alive, the other for condemning her crew. She was damming herself for circumstances that were hardly her fault, but she knew the other captain, if alive, would have stood in the same stance as she was now—body framed, with arms outstretched, wrists roped and roughly bound to the corners of the door frame leading to her bedroom.

She had given up on the Florence scenario, which had proven too remote and alien. The make-believe world of the XIVth century felt too much like she was engaging in a warped illusion, which couldn’t be further from what she sought. Her quarters were more appropriate. More personal. Closer to what she wanted to achieve—peace within herself, if only until the next crisis.

Chakotay, praise her new hologram of him, hadn’t argued while he tied her up. He picked up the whip, and she waited for the first strike, listening to the muted sounds of his footfalls on the carpet as he took his place off her left shoulder.

Her anticipation grew until she feared he was going to put his feet on the living room table while reading a padd or two, and just let her hang there for the duration of the holodeck session.

Or worse, that he would untie her and say that was enough. Maybe even take her in his arms, because god knows she would love him to—

The swish of the flogger cut through the air too quickly, too close, and before she could brace herself, it landed on her back with a thud, the sudden pain emptying her lungs. She jerked against the restraints, her body begging to escape the agony that descended on her. Where the previous hologram had acted like a metronome, Chakotay varied the timing of the blows and their angle, from the small of the back right across her shoulders, not missing an inch of skin in between. Soon the room filled with moans she could hardly utter between the fast-coming cracks.

She had one hundred and fifty people to cry for.

That was a lot of strikes.

She lost count after twenty. Her back was on fire, her mind swimming with pain, her soul crying for the people her counterpart had killed, the twins of those who were going about their day on the other side of the holodeck walls. One ship had been saved through the destruction of another. How many more unbearable choices would she have to face? How many more terrible decisions would she need to take during the journey ahead?

By the time Chakotay undid the ties, she could barely stand. Refusing his help, she staggered to the bathroom, holding on to the furniture and walls. It took ten minutes in the sonic shower for the remnants of her undershirt and trousers to fall off, and the bloodstains, along with her sorrow and her wrongs, to vanish under its pulsing vibrations.

She returned to the bedroom, ordered a new uniform from the wall replicator and put the pants on before moving to the lounge. There, she faced the wall, forehead on her folded arms. The Chakotay hologram used the dermal regenerator over her injuries, the pain waning to a dull throb. Her hand stopped him before he went for a second pass. He helped her instead thread her arms carefully through the sleeves of her uniform jacket.

She watched him exit the holographic room. He was only a pale imitation of the man she could never bring here, but he was all she could hope for, and that had to be enough.

Leaving the holodeck for her quarters, the tears and welts left behind by the whip stretched with each step as if a new woman were growing underneath. In the early morning, she finished healing the swelling lines of blue and yellow weals criss-crossing her back, watching them disappear in the mirror until only a few pink lines remained. Her eyes grew steely grey again, the colour of the ice which had threatened to swallow her whole so many years before.

She was reborn again.

Until the next time.


	4. Mortification

**Chapter 4 - Mortification**

> _Steer your way_   
>  _Through the pain  
>  That is far more real than you_
> 
> Leonard Cohen - ‘Steer Your Way’

**⁂**

Over the next three years, _Voyager_ lurched from one crisis to another, its captain too exhausted to do anything else but collapse on her bed at the end of the day for a few dreamless hours. Killing Tuvix, who had so much to live for; saving Kes by setting aside her trust in the hard facts of science; trampling temporal principles underfoot; fighting a being who had tried to lure her into her own death.

Dying was too easy a way out as far she was concerned and, besides, she had her solution at hand.

The Chakotay hologram never argued when she came back to him. She couldn’t have chosen a better man than the Maquis leader to act as this model of punitive justice, deaf to her explanations and steady in meting out her punishment.

She divested herself of her uniform jacket, undershirt and bra, feeling nothing about being half-undressed in the presence of the hologram. It wasn't the man she'd spent three months with on an uninhabited planet, so long ago now.

Sitting down, she took her boots and socks off. Their stay on New Earth was not a memory she wanted to dwell on right now. Chakotay's hologram was simply a means to an end, the best she could invoke within the constraints of the ship and her position. It was mad, it was self-serving, and yet…

She placed the familiar whip on the table.

…and yet, it served a purpose. She was most likely delusional in thinking she could deal with the consequences of her choices that easily, but Dante had an answer for everything it seemed. She wasn’t sure which circle of Hell she’d reached, but there couldn’t be many more to go.

She stood under the opened door between the bedroom and the lounge, and bowed her head, bracing herself against the frame.

The Borg.

Her decision would condemn her either way. Ally herself to the Borg and become a traitor to all that the Federation stood for; allow them to take an advantage and she would only make them stronger, placing countless more species at the risk of assimilation.

She let out a cynical chuckle. That would be for tomorrow. Tonight, it was only fitting that the man who had forcefully argued against her and even doubted her sanity was the same whose hologram would soon enter the room and start on her penance. At the very least, she could rely on her creation to obey her orders without question.

But the session only left her with an angry back and more turmoil in her mind, and she forgot all about it in the days following. The alliance died in her first officer’s hands, a single drone remained on board _Voyager_ , and her trust in Chakotay found itself sorely shaken despite her paltry attempt to remedy their differences.

How was she going to breach the gaping chasm between them?

In the end, she was not given that chance.

**⁂**

“I need to talk to you.”

“It’s late, Chakotay. If it’s not worth a red alert, talk to me tomorrow.”

He put his foot on the threshold, preventing the door of her quarters from closing. “No. Now.”

She let him in, too drained to argue.

Chakotay strode to the middle of the room, then turned around, tightly clenched fists at his sides as if he was ready to lash out. “I thought I had seen everything I could imagine you doing, but never that.”

She felt the blood leave her face and icy fingers seep inside her chest. He knew. Oh god, he knew.

How? When?

The Doctor must have found out. But he couldn’t breach patient confidentiality. She’d reinforced his programming very early on to avoid that very issue.

“What are you talking about?” she managed to utter.

“Seven of Nine accessed the Doctor’s records after I decompressed deck eight. She failed to get into his deep memory core to get the information she was after, but she sure found out a lot more about you from your medical records than I ever knew.”

She must have looked blank because his voice rose. “Seven didn't realise the significance of your injuries. The explosion that knocked you out while you were on the Borg cube came from the console in front of you. It can’t explain the scars you’ve got on your back.”

He knew nothing. Her breathing became a bit easier. “Chakotay, whatever Seven told you, she was mistaken. Now, please leave. I am tired.”

“I didn’t talk to Seven. I didn’t need to. I was linked to her mind for a few minutes, remember? I saw what she saw, read what she read, although it took me some time to put two and two together. Because those scars explain a lot, don’t they? The days you spend secreted in your ready room bunker, the way you hold yourself at times looking all stiff and as if in pain, the excuses you keep giving me when I get concerned, that you are fine. Again and again.”

“It’s a private matter,” she warned.

Chakotay came close, too close, and she bumped the back of her legs against the low table. “And would a review board approve of that private matter, Captain?”

She looked away. No admirals in their right mind would approve, but that was the way it had to be. With Starfleet decades away, there were no board to denounce her, no higher court to hold her to its principles.

“I didn’t think so,” Chakotay said, his eyes pinning her down. “So, what am I going to see if I turn you around and lift your shirt?”

 _Who did he think he was?_ She jutted her chin. “One more step, Commander, and I’ll call Security.”

He put his hands up in mock retreat. “Go ahead. I’m sure Tuvok would be very interested in your explanation, before we decide what to do with you.”

“Is that all this is about? You want me out of the captain’s chair that much? Because I didn’t follow your advice?” she said in disbelief.

Chakotay’s shoulders straightened as if he was close to hitting her, but then he took a couple of deep breaths. “I have no intention in taking your place, if that’s what you are insinuating,” he said, his eyes hard. “But I am your first officer, and regardless of what you’re doing to yourself, I sure would like to understand your more recent orders.”

Unwilling to give him one single opening, she put her hands on her hips. “Let’s not change the subject. You are still arguing against my decision to get this crew home faster by going through Borg territory.”

“You think you’ve done the right thing, but pursuing an alliance with the Borg was a mistake, as I’ve pointed out on several occasions.”

Her teeth ground before she answered him. “Thank you for such a brilliant tactical analysis of the situation. If you’re worried about your reputation as a Starfleet officer, be assured that I’ve noted your numerous objections in the ship’s logs.” Nodding in the direction of the door, she added, “Now—”

He snarled, his face only half a foot from hers. “Don’t insult me. It doesn’t suit you. Yes, I am concerned about your command decisions. Yes, I am concerned about your state of mind. But more importantly, I am concerned about you, Kathryn,” he said.

She bit her lips. Of course, he was concerned about her. That was his job, and she had let him down. But, right now, she couldn’t afford to let him come any closer to what she kept well hidden.

“First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll go and see the EMH,” she said in a conciliatory tone, ignoring Chakotay’s rising eyebrows. “I’m sure, he’ll give me a clean bill of health, both mental and physical. Then we’ll put this whole affair behind us and continue on our journey as one team. The crew needs us united now more than ever.” It was a low blow, exploiting his sense of responsibility to the crew and ship, but he was her first officer and nothing else, lest she broke into a hundred pieces in front of him.

He drew himself to his full stature, towering over her. “I want the truth now, Kathryn. What have you been doing to yourself?”

The man was about as obstinate as she was, but he had to back off. “I’ll make a deal with you. If the Doctor finds anything amiss with me, you’re welcome to relieve me of command.”

Chakotay’s eyes widened, and she knew straight away her flippant answer had been a mistake. “I know you,” he said, shaking his head as if not believing what he’d just heard. “You would rather die than give up command.” He took a step back. “Something is very wrong with you, and you give me no alternative than to discuss my concerns with Tuvok and the Doctor first thing tomorrow morning.”

She turned aside and waved her hand, hoping to appear unflustered. “Do whatever you think you must do, Commander. Now, for the last time, go.”

His fists still curled tight, he turned on his heel and left her quarters.

The door closed behind him, and Kathryn collapsed on the couch. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. And neither could Tuvok. She had to erase all traces of her holodeck programs. Without them, only the scars on her back would remain as proof of what she’d done to herself; evidence she could easily spin into a lie—an accidental injury for which she should have sought the Doctor’s help much earlier. She would get a rap over the knuckles and bow to the EMH’s call for more regular medical appointments.

But first, she had to cover her tracks and, in doing so, betray the trust of her closest friends, two men who had only her best interests at heart. Strange how that most personal of deceits cut much deeper than anything she had done before. She had truly reached the last circle of Hell, the level reserved for traitors and betrayers of the worst kind, condemned to remain trapped in unyielding ice for eternity.

Rising to her feet, she left her quarters for the holodeck. The bitter irony of Dante’s allegory hadn’t escaped her, another reminder of the price people she loved had paid for her decisions.

**⁂**

She stood in front of the wall terminal, her hand poised to type the deletion command. There would be no more seeking redemption at the end of a whip for the rest of the journey, no summary punishment to satisfy her need for penance, no strong hands to deliver what she so justly deserved.

Taking a deep breath, she punched in her authorisation code instead. The door of the holodeck opened to the Florence scenario. For her last ever visit, she thought it fitting to return to the dark room where it had all started, with its musty wall tapestries and their righteous saints and honourable women looking down on her.

She crossed the room and opened the doors to the balcony. The breeze carried the smell of rain over the tiled roofs of the old city, the shouts and voices of the people in the streets below reaching up into the evening sky. Horses and donkeys, pigs and bony dogs scurried along, busy and oblivious. Nobody glanced at the lone woman in black and red leaning against the balustrade.

After a few minutes, she turned her back to the city and its people, closed the wooden shutters and drew the heavy curtains. A couple of candles next to the basin and towel gave out the only light in the room.

She took her jacket and shirt off, carefully folding them on the chair. Without hesitating, she undid her bra, then took her pants and panties off too, ignoring the chill in the air. Soon, she was standing naked under the familiar wooden frame, bare of anything reflecting her rank and role. She was no longer the captain who sought a just punishment, but the woman behind the mask of command; the woman who kept on hurting the people coming too close; who had repeatedly divested herself of any claim to a life without pain.

The leather-clad hologram she had programmed a long time ago tied her up with his usual efficiency, his eyes hidden behind the mask. She took no notice of him. He was a mere shadow of what she yearned for. A puppet she would delete along with the entire program once the session ended.

“Do not stop until I tell you three times,” she instructed. The safety protocols were off. She had no interest in torturing herself again, but she might as well make this last session worth remembering for more than a few welts.

The strong hand picked up the single-tailed whip, and, with a flick of the wrist, made it crack against the marbled floor.

“Three times. Always so precise, Captain. Always in control.”

She froze.


	5. Punishment

**Chapter 5 - Punishment**

> _O solitude of longing_   
>  _Where love has been confined_
> 
> Leonard Cohen - ‘Come Healing’

**⁂**

Chakotay took off his mask and slowly walked around her, dragging the whip against her skin. Goose bumps which had nothing to do with the chill in the room trailed the length of her body, following his footsteps.

“How did you…?”

“I made an educated guess. I asked myself: where can she go and hide what she does? Not likely to be within the walls of her own quarters. That left the holodeck.”

His voice was cold, his contempt more threatening behind the mocking tone than his anger had been. He continued his pacing, the thin leather strap lingering over the angles of her body. “So, I came here after talking to you, and asked the computer about your programs. They were all easily accessible except for two. What kind of recreational programs needs a level nine clearance to unlock them?”

“And what kind of first officer spies on their captain?” Kathryn hissed. Let him believe anything but why she needed the whip and pain and surrender. She shifted her weight, caught between not attracting more attention to her naked state, and taking the strain off her arms.

Standing before her, he gazed up and down her body as if she was a piece of meat hanging from a butcher hook. “I said it before. I was concerned. Nothing wrong with a first officer checking that their captain is not endangering their life, is there? But you were so eager to rush back to your little fantasy, you didn’t see me when I followed you inside.”

He used the handle of the whip to trace a path between her breasts and up to the dip of her throat. “I wouldn't have taken you for somebody attracted to such lengths, Kathryn. Seems I never knew you at all.” In a quick move, he pushed the handle hard against her chin, forcing her head backwards. “How dare you use a hologram of me for your sad little game?” he spat against her cheek.

She’d never seen him that angry before. It was a side of him he kept well out of her sight, although she’d heard rumours about how he’d disciplined his own people early in their journey. Unconsciously, she had left that deep-seated wrath of his well out of her holodeck programs. Her sessions would have ended in a blood bath if his holograms had acted on that temper.

_And you would have deserved it._

She tried to answer him, but he would have none of it, his eyes and the pommel of the whip searing her mouth shut. “Don’t even think of denying it. That hologram is my height, my stature, looks like me except for the tattoo. I don’t care how you spice up your barren sex life, Kathryn, but don’t. Ever. Use me like that again.” He marched away, the end of the whip following him like a well-trained dog.

Her chest and throat hurt as she took shallow breaths, her mind swirling. He thought she’d been using his hologram for a sex game. As appalling the idea sounded, maybe she could take advantage of his misreading of the whole set-up. She had betrayed him so many times already, once for every occasion she had summoned his hologram, once for every lash she had ordered from it. Violations upon violations to add to a long list of wrongs. One more would hardly add to her burden of lies, but better him thinking she sought sexual relief this way than the truth. He was too honourable to understand her need to bow under the pain.

She moved her jaw to loosen it, but what came out of her mouth sounded weak and pitiful. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't have used you as the basis for the hologram, but I needed somebody whom I could trust. Untie me and I'll dele—”

Only his hard laugh emerged from the darkness which had swallowed him. “Trust? Seems to me that trust has been in short supply between us for a very long time. While you were admiring the view on the balcony, I checked when you first accessed the program. You created it only a few weeks after I came on board _Voyager_. No wonder you wanted to get off New Earth so badly. You just craved to come back to your sex pet as fast as possible. That was all your parameters were about, weren't they?”

She shook her binds at the harsh words. Whichever way she turned, there was no escape from the cross she had bound herself to so tightly. She’d been blind to the consequences of her actions on the person closest to her. Now, she would have to find something to tell him, something which wouldn’t drag him down to the private hell she had built around herself. But she couldn’t do that tied to this instrument of torture. And she still had to erase the other program before he found out about it too. The program with a much closer approximation of the man in front of her than the Florentine hologram had ever been.

She searched for him in the shadows of the room. “It's not what you think. Let me go, and I promise I’ll come to your quarters and explain it all.” She couldn’t face him in her own quarters, what with the memory of his hologram flogging her in the doorway to her holographic bedroom. She had so much to hide. So much to lose.

His lashing voice came from behind her, causing her to straighten her back. “You mean you’ll put your uniform back on and order me to keep silent,” he said. “That won’t work.”

Shivers run through her as the whip stroked her shoulders before gliding down to the buttocks. Things were spiralling much too fast out of her control. “Computer, freeze program,” she uttered.

The darkness remained, a solid wall of nothingness closing on her.

Chakotay muttered in her ear, making her jump. “I bypassed your authorisation code using one of mine.” He moved to the side, the handle of the whip now trailing around her stomach. “You really should thank the Borg. I had to stay ahead of their attempts at accessing the ship computer, but I didn’t think my newly acquired skills would come in handy so quickly.”

“Let me go,” she growled. “Now. I will not beg.”

“And there I was, thinking begging turned you on.” His laugh wasn’t a cheerful one. “Captain Janeway likes to explore new frontiers, wants to add some excitement to her cheerless life. So, tell me, what do you order that holographic clone of mine to do to you?”

“You tell me.” She swallowed her fear and pushed her arms up, taking in a few muffled breaths and some weight off her scuffed wrists. Chakotay had tied the thongs holding her to the frame too tightly, pulling at her arms and constricting her rib cage.

He faced her and tapped the top of her chest with the whip handle. “I want you to say it aloud, Kathryn.”

“I ask him—” Chakotay was coming too close to what lay deep within her. A part of it at any case. A part she could use and mould into a lie, with a kernel of truth in the middle, but why was it so hard to say? “I ask him to hit me,” she admitted, her head bowed. The deception was all hers to bear, and yet it was a release to bring it to the open after such a long time hiding in the deepest shadows.

“With this?” Chakotay struck the upright post with the whip, making her recoil. The wooden frame didn’t budge.

“Yes. Now that you’ve got your answer, let me go.”

“And do you enjoy it?” he asked. Then he shook his head as if he recognised his mistake, sneering. “Stupid question. Of course, you like it.”

He moved out of her line of sight again. She twisted her body as much as her tied hands and feet would allow before losing him into the storm gathering behind her.

“So, how many times does he hit you?” The small hairs at the back of her neck rose under his breath. She leaned towards him, a reflex gained through standing together on the bridge through endless shifts and alien attacks.

“Once wouldn’t be enough, would it?” he said, his voice louder, sharper.

The whip cracked closer this time and the tip flicked Kathryn’s shoulder. Her chest tightened and her breathing turned shallow in anticipation. Another crack and a wispy sting fell across her back. _Harder,_ she thought. _Harder._

“Let me guess. Ten times? Twenty?”

When the next crack came, the whip curved around her body and she muffled the cry at the sharp pain on her stomach. She had endured worse in the hands of the hologram, and God knew she deserved more than this. It was all that she had hoped for and never really got. The moment of salvation she’d been after all those months and years, at the hands of the only man who could provide it.

How did he know her so well?

“Or until it hurts so much you can’t take it any longer, and you still ask for more?” His harsh words bounced around her.

_Yes._

She didn’t even hear the whip before a long searing ache brought her back ablaze. It wouldn’t matter if there were no more sessions, no more nameless holograms. This dark room, the cracks of the whip, the fire exploding inside her, her first officer—judge, jury and executioner—dripping contempt at what she’d done, those memories would be hers for the rest of the journey.

“And how long before you do ask for more? Or do you leave it up to my hologram? Because that’s what you want, don’t you? Let somebody else take over and beat you, again and again.”

_Yes, yes._

The next strike fell, soon followed by another one, and she bit her tongue under the quickened pace. Spitting out blood, she gave herself to the blows. Her vision narrowed and her heartbeat slowed, all sense of time obscured. Her soul soared, willingly accepting her own suffering as just retribution for all the grief and hurt she’d caused to so many and to the one by her side.

She’d never felt such blissful peace, her body and mind wedded as one in exquisite agony.

And above all that pain, above the sounds of the whip against her flesh, above the incoherent cries rising behind her, she thanked a deity she’d never believed in for sending salvation and retributive justice in the shape of the one man who stood by her every day. The one man who knew all about violence and pain, and didn’t shy from either.

She heard a grunt, and the strikes slowed then stopped. The ecstasy waned almost immediately, but she smiled as she sagged against her bonds. She ought to thank Chakotay for helping her finally reached what she’d sought for so long. Space, maybe, wasn’t as indifferent to her fate as the priest had proclaimed, so long ago. Here, she’d finally found a place of judgement, a place of punishment, and ultimately of purification. And all because of—

“Kathryn?” Chakotay’s shattered voice cut through the silence. “What have I done?” Heavy footsteps, faltering behind her. “What have I done to you?”

One heartbeat, one last breath of relief, and cold horror flooded her, sweeping aside her short-lived rapture. Grace and redemption were only a delusion, and there could be no atoning for drawing Chakotay into her self-inflicted torment. “Computer, end program,” she whispered. “Authorisation Janeway Beta 2.” Her level-ten authorisation code trumped anything her first officer would come up with. That she should have used it much earlier was another failing she would have to deal with later. For now, all that counted was him.

The wooden frame disappeared, leaving her teetering on aching feet. Their support gone, her arms dropped by her sides like two dead lumps, the shoulder joints protesting the sudden change in position. Unable to stop her fall, she staggered forward before crashing against the cold holodeck wall in one messy heap.

Everything hurt, wiping away the now faded sense of utter bliss she’d sought so eagerly under Chakotay’s discipline. He had hit her half a dozen times at most, and not that hard she now realised, but the session had been about so much more than physical pain. This time, she had given herself totally to the one and only person she could trust to punish her justly.

And it had been so very wrong. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him to her own pitiful ways of coping. He didn’t deserve that.

Chakotay kept staring at the whip now lifeless in his hand. She licked her lips to moisten them, the taste of blood bitter and unpleasant. “Chakotay, listen to me.” The man she trusted with her life looked at her, his gaze blank. She could not imagine what was going through his mind. “I should never have used your hologram,” she persisted, eager to regain control of a situation she had allowed to get away from her in a fateful moment of self-indulgence. “What happened here was entirely my doing.”

Ignoring the needles boring into her fingers as sensation came back to her hands, she used her elbows to sit up. “I pushed and taunted you, but you didn't hurt me.” She almost broke then, but doggedly continued. “I could have stopped you whenever I wanted, and you’ve done nothing I haven’t done to myself dozens of times.” Shuddering, she brought her knees to her chest, a belated and puerile gesture given how much of herself she had already put on display. Her nakedness must make for a pathetic sight.

Chakotay flung the whip aside as if it had bitten him and moved to pick up her clothes from the chair. He squatted by her side, his hand landing lightly on her arm. “You are wrong, Kathryn. I have hurt you. I’ve hurt you badly and for too long by not being who you needed me to be. Please forgive me.”

She recoiled from his touch, her throat tight. How could he talk to her after what she had forced him to do? How could he even bear being in the same room? She searched his face for contempt, but his smile was only sad and pained. “Tell me how I can help you,” he said, gently placing her jacket around her shoulders.

She fought a longing to burrow into his strong embrace. She had enough of this never-ending fight with herself which was looking less and less worth the price, but Chakotay wasn’t a knight picking up her favour and riding with it into battle. Her adversary was not his to overcome. Never had been.

“I can’t,” she said, and she left it up to him to decide if she wouldn’t tell him or that he couldn’t help her. Spasms ran up and down her body, making it difficult to focus on anything other than the deep pain radiating through her.

“You need to see the EMH,” he said, his voice sounding remote but much more resolute than that of his hologram who had uttered the same words a long time ago.

She tried to grab the rest of her clothes, but her hands felt disconnected from her will. “No. Go. Please. Leave me. I can look after myself.” No, she could not. Not any longer, but she had to. Racked by violent shudders, she pushed herself upright in one last-ditch effort even as the wall swayed away from her. Why couldn’t she get her body to obey her? She’d done it before, when the punishment had been much more severe.

“Computer, site-to-site transport to my quarters,” she heard Chakotay say as her legs gave way again, and darkness mercifully claimed her.


	6. Redemption

**Chapter 6 – Redemption**

> _The Heart beneath is teaching_   
>  _To the broken Heart above_
> 
> Leonard Cohen - ‘Come Healing’

**⁂**

She blinked, wishing the drowsiness away. Warm and comfortable, she lay on her side on the couch, a blanket draped over her. Tentatively, she flexed her back and shoulder muscles, hardly feeling any pain. Her wrists were healed too.

“You got the Doctor to treat me,” she said to the man sitting in the shadow across her. It was a statement more than disapproval. She had only a few hours before her actions were denounced, her failings made public, judgement passed, and her sentence pronounced. Her fate was now in the hands of her first officer, and she mourned the full-blown fury he had displayed on the holodeck. Anything than this calm and composure which judged her without recourse. She sat straighter, still expecting the pain to go through her like a lance. But there was only a dull ache now, and that was what her life would be from now on. Dull and dreary.

“Didn’t have to,” he said. “I keep a couple of hypos and dermal regenerators here.”

“What for?” She peeked under the blanket to confirm she was clothed. She had only a vague recollection of him helping her put on pyjamas and a dressing gown that he must have got from her quarters.

“Sometimes, my boxing sessions get a bit…intense.” He waved his hand as if gently brushing away the reproach forming on her lips. “Nothing the Doctor needs to know about,” he added.

She pushed herself up. _How could he do that to himself? It was—_

The meaning behind his words hit her hard, and she fell back on the couch. How could she have not seen what was right under her eyes? She’d been too focused on herself, that was why, and had never considered he could be suffering too through their long journey. Questions reeled in her mind. How long had he sought refuge on the holodeck? Was it how he coped when the pain swallowed him whole, or was it different for him? How badly was he hurting?

Chakotay stood and took two heavy-bottomed glasses and a half-empty bottle of something dark red off a shelf behind him. Without a word, he poured half an inch of the rich liquid into one of the glasses and gave it to her.

He returned to his seat and did the same for himself. “The hologram,” he said, swirling the drink in his hand. “It’s not there to satisfy your sexual needs, is it?”

She downed the harsh whiskey, letting its warmth trickle down her throat and into her chest. It was no synthehol and hardly recommended when she was already high on medication.

“No,” she said, putting the glass back on the low table in front of her.

She had massively underestimated the cost of cleansing her mind in such a vindictive manner, plunging ever further into a frenzy of self-punishment which had always seemed to be so well-deserved. There had to be another way she could summon when her mind careered off into the darkness. A path between self-flagellation and absolution.

Between cruelty and grace.

Keeping her eyes on the glass, she talked, brokenly at first, about Cardassians and two loves lost to an icy planet, and her fights and failures ever since, her recounting lasting well into the small hours of the morning. Chakotay never moved from his chair except to refill their glasses once more before switching to coffee. He didn’t interrupt her confession, but his eyes stayed on her all that time, saying ‘I’m here, I’m here’, until she had emptied herself of all the hurt she had caused and all pretence that she was fine.

And at the end, she was not healed. Far from it. But she had started on a new path.

**⁂**

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, young lady.”

The house was as she remembered—full of light and the grown trees gently swaying across the tall windows. The books were still there too, neatly aligned on straight shelves this time.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to serve the coffee my assistant prepared earlier. I sent him on an errand to the Academy, and my old bones prefer if I don’t get up from behind the desk.”

Kathryn walked to the side table under the window. “How do you like it, Father?”

“Black and two sugars, thank you. I’ve developed a sweet tooth in my old age.”

She poured the dark coffee and added the sugar to one of the cups. After a short hesitation, she placed a dollop of cream in hers, before returning to the desk with the tray.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” the old man asked. “I would think a newly minted admiral has about as little time for an old priest like me as the young ensign who came through these doors, twenty years ago.”

She handed him his cup, then sat in a highbacked leather chair opposite. Twenty years? Had it been that long? But the slight tremor in the priest’s hands and his stooped shoulders bore witness to the passage of time. She was no longer who she had been all those years ago either. “I wanted to thank you, Father, on behalf of that young ensign who didn't understand what you were trying to tell her.”

He sipped on his cup, a bushy eyebrow half lifted. “Well, you took your own sweet time, if I may say so. And I am not talking about your sojourn in the Delta quadrant.”

She hid a self-deprecating smile behind her own cup. “I can be stubborn, I’ve been told.”

“I’d like to think Starfleet counsellors are helping you with more than just stating the obvious.”

“They are.” She was grateful for their advice and expertise which were helping put her last demons to rest.

Since that night in his quarters, Chakotay had been there for her. He’d never made her promise not to hurt herself anymore, never asked her to stop her visits to the holodeck. He knew better than most the urge to let the pain take over when there were no other ways to carry the brokenness of life and the crosses of too many deaths. When she felt the irresistible need to atone once more, she had only to ask and he came to her quarters to take care of her scored back and wounded soul. She did the same for him when anger overwhelmed him, unwrapping the gauze from his bloodied hands and healing his damaged face. But after four years of remissions and relapses, of cravings and self-hatred, it was good for others to take some of the weight off their shoulders.

“Did you find what you sought in that empty and dark space you so wished to explore?” the priest asked.

“Space is hardly the cruel place you seem to fear. I spent seven years dwelling in it. I’ve got to know its moods well.”

“Its moods? You might need more counselling that you think, Admiral.” The old man was only half jesting.

“Or maybe we’ve been seeking the same thing under a different name, Doctor Coirib.”

“An explorer _and_ a philosopher.” His eyes peered at her over the rim of his antique-looking glasses. “I knew you had all the making of a great officer, and you’ve exceeded all my expectations.”

His compliment made her frown. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, but I do know it wasn't space which almost swallowed me whole.”

“It is easier, though, to lose our way in that emptiness when one is alone for so long.”

“I was never alone while I was there. It just took me a long time to recognise the fact.”

“ _Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore_ ,” whispered the priest before finishing his coffee. “Then tell me. What did you do, Admiral, with that new knowledge?”

She played with the ring on her left hand, sparkling in the sunshine, and smiled. “I found grace in the love of a good man and told myself ‘here begins a new life’.”


End file.
